Rep Bids For a Reprieve 

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Guiesseppe Jones is the most humdrum and domesticated of the convicted blacks as Robert Hayes. While Jones distinguishes himself with his low-key portrayal, Gina Daniels doesn't get a chance to show much as his loyal wife Georgia.

On the other hand, Carver Johns and Martin Thompson are perhaps encouraged to show too much, playing all the heavies. Their surreptitious costume changes are enjoyable, but most of their hayseeds, bullying cops, underhanded prosecutors and sleazoid snitches are taken to the point of caricature — particularly where Mowers sees fit to lighten the evening with a Southern-fried stereotype.

If you're hearing the harrowing stories of The Exonerated for the first time, you'll readily empathize with Mowers' malice toward their tormentors. After the suffering they inflicted, it's a pitifully small retribution.

Two big-name keyboard virtuosi sat center stage at Belk Theater last week, and neither one disappointed. Navah Perlman was featured with the Prague Symphony, attacking Chopin's Piano Concerto #2 with surprising muscularity. If her initial onslaught set off misgivings that Izhak's daughter might be a tad heavy-handed, those misgivings were dispelled in the lyrical passages of the opening maestoso and ensuing larghetto.The Czechs mated well with Perlman under Rastislav Stur's baton and did nicely on Beethoven's "Leonore Overture 3.0." But Dvorak's Symphony #6 was a milky gruel except for the vibrant Slavonic dance in the third movement. All in all, with Cantus and St. Petersburg Ballet looming straight ahead, Carolinas Concert Association's jubilee season is turning out to be among their best.

Later in the week, Jean-Yves Thibaudet was decked out in a red serge jacket, signing CDs in the lobby after his conquest of the Ravel Piano Concerto in G with the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra. Unfortunately, we had to endure a curiously lackadaisical trudge through Schubert's Symphony #9 after intermission. Maestro Christof Perick had the CSO polished to a fine sheen, but the work didn't sound as "Great" as it did nine years ago under Peter McCoppin.

With so much excitement at the Belk and the Booth, I was only able to catch the first night of the three-day North Carolina Dance Festival at the Afro-Am Cultural Center. The fare was all topnotch, but this wasn't the best night to sample groups from outside Charlotte : or new stuff from Martha Connerton/Kinetic Works, the host company.Best of the new pieces was Nelson Reyes' "Largo Tempo," a wacky solo that saw a tuxedoed Reyes lose his sleeves, his jacket, his pants legs and his dignity amid a hodgepodge of classical music. Noel Reiss, a UNC-Charlotte choreographer, presented "Upper Hand," sporting fine chemistry — and lots of attitude — from Tai Dorn partnered with Jeremy Foyle. If you hadn't seen its premiere back in August, Connerton's "Vox 2" was a radiant way to end the program.

Give the crown to Greensboro for the best Black History Month celebration of 2005. Tuesday of last week, I drove up I-85 to see Triad Stage's presentation of Gloria Bond Clunie's North Star, a drama that takes place in a small North Carolina town after the Greensboro Four have sparked the sit-in demonstrations that swept the South in 1960.So there I am on South Elm Street about half an hour before the show begins. Less than a block past the Triad Stage storefront, I turn right to find a parking spot — on E. February One Place! Just 6-1/2 hours earlier, the reason for that street name had been vividly commemorated.

Exactly 45 years after those four students from NCA&T sat down at the Woolworth's lunch counter on South Elm and politely ordered coffee, the restored 5&10 façade had been unveiled in a noontime ceremony. It's a big step toward a complete restoration that will culminate with the official opening of the International Civil Rights Center & Museum on July 25.

That will be the 45th anniversary of the victorious afternoon when FW Woolworth's caved in and, without advance publicity, agreed to serve three black men sitting at their lunch counter.

Clunie's drama, lovingly staged by Triad Stage, transcends mere history lesson. At a grassroots level, North Star diligently chronicles the preparation that went into staging the sit-ins. We're reminded that non-violent protest requires more than simple courage. This triumph of the human spirit over insidious Jim Crow oppression took a special kind of discipline and zeal.

Reaching the climactic moment when a divided family unites and launches the sit-in, we're treated to an almost religious spectacle. As the lunch counter emerges from the wings and into the Triad Stage spotlight, the authenticity is uncanny.

As it should be. The five Woolworth's stools used to build that counter are on loan from the Museum — through this coming Sunday.